Two of them looked up with drowsy eyes, into which there came a
look of surprise and then of displeasure as I spoke a few words to
them. Opposite me was a fair young man, with soft blond hair and a
silky moustache. He looked like a Saxon, but told me afterwards that
he came from Cologne. Next to him was a typical young aristocrat of
the Bavarian type, in the uniform of a Jaeger regiment In the same
carriage were some other officers sleeping heavily. One of them, with
a closely-cropped bullet head and the low-browed face of, a man who
fights according to the philosophy of Bernhardi, without pity, sat up
abruptly, swore a fierce word or two, and then fell back and snored
again.
The two younger men answered some of my questions, sullenly at
first, but afterwards with more friendliness, against which their pride
struggled. But they had not much to say. They were tired. They had
been taken by surprise. They would have time to learn English as
prisoners of war. They had plenty of food and tobacco.
When the next batch of them arrived I was able to get into a closed
truck, among the private soldiers. They were quite comfortable in
there, and were more cheery than the officers in the other train.
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